“Rite of Passage” by Richard Wright

While I did not intend for Wright’s book to become my challenge book, it absolutely was. I struggled throughout at least the first half of the book, only to begin getting sucked in and be disappointed by the ending. “Rite of Passage” tells the story of Johnny Gibbs, a fifteen year old who is abruptly informed that the family he has grown up with is not actually his family, but instead his foster family. They tell him that he must leave home that very night to live with his new foster family. Although it is mildly emotional in the sense that Johnny yells at his mother and denies that this is the truth, the dialog feels incredibly contrived and this should be emotional moment felt meaningless as I read. Johnny runs away, only to find his friend Billy, who is very excited by Johnny’s grand adventure of being forced to leave his home. Billy leads Johnny to the school where their secret gang meets, and Johnny is brutally initiated, only to become the leader of the gang that very night. The lack of resolve might merely be present to suggest that Johnny has chosen this life, and thus there is no hope of happiness returning, yet it left me very frustrated.

Despite my incredibly negative view of the novel, I think that I would still have this book present in my classroom as a free read for students. While I did not see value in the story, that does not mean that my students will not see the value of it. I think that I was too far removed from this story to enjoy it, yet my students might.